Page 77 of When Sinners Fear

“Yeah, well, we’ll get to that. We’re playing ball first.”

He’s walking off into the garden before I’ve asked the questions I want to ask, smiling for once in his life. I get up and swing the bat into my grip, unsure about anything, but at least having a plan to start working on now. Looks like an alliance is coming for us, along with a fuck-load of work for me.

~

The afternoon and evening merge into each other. It’s good, full of laughter and booze, as it always is for these kinds of celebrations, but I barely drink. I’m too consumed with watching Abel and Lexi, or Mariana and Kai – their bonds. The thought of that alliance with Logan is flooding me with all kinds of ideas as well. Most of them reside in some eventual form of security and safety. A whole damn world of thoughts lead me straight back to someone I could be safe and secure for, and that leads me down roads I never thought I’d consider travelling.

Excuses made, and I leave for home early. The streets don’t lead me back to mine, though. They lead me to a church and an old friend. He’s standing up by the altar when I walk in, head bowed in prayer. I look up at the rafters, rolling my eyes at the sheer fucking absurdity of all this crap, but give him his moment of self-gratification.

He turns eventually and is clearly surprised to see me. “Knox?”

“I’m as bewildered by this as you are, Michael.”

He comes closer, and I listen to his footsteps reverberating around the silence until he stops three feet out from me. “That looks nasty,” he says, lifting his chin at my neck and scar. He’s right. It does. As does the rest of me. I didn’t come here to talk about that, though.

Frowning, he sits on a pew and nods at me to sit. “Why are you here?”

“I'm not sure, but I think I need to talk about Peyton Summers.”

“Her disappearance was something to do with you?”

“Yes.”

He sighs. “I hear she’s back at college now.”

“She is. I need to know if I should leave her alone or not.”

“You’re asking me? I doubt you need my influence to guide you, Knox. You’ve always known who you are and what you want. Redemption clearly isn't it if you played with that poor girl to amuse yourself.”

“That's the trouble, Michael. I didn’t amuse myself. I hated myself. And whilst you don’t need to know all the specifics, you should know that I got lost with her. We shared something in that time, and pursuing it wasn’t an option. For her sake. It could be now.”

“This sounds like a long conversation.” I nod and stare past him at all the finery and gilt edges, imagining her in here that first time I saw her. “But there’s only really one question you have to ask yourself.”

“That is?”

“Do you love her enough to forsake all others for her?” I look back at him sharply. “Because that's the overriding principle of love. Assuming it’s love we’re discussing.”

My stare narrows, but I don't dispute the truth. “We’ll need to drink while we do this.”

It’s his turn to roll his eyes, but he gets up and leads us across the pews to a private area at the side of the church. A drawer gets opened, and a large bottle of something alcoholic gets pulled out. “Sit.” He points at a chair and begins stripping himself of his robes. “Tell me about it, but for the love of God keep it clean. Remember where we are.”

I don’t give a damn where we are. If I’m going to confess my sins, I’m getting them all out in one go. I won’t be coming back to do it again.

CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT

PEYTON

It feels alien.

This was my safe space – my happy place where I would excel and find stimulation for my busy mind. But everything feels different now.

I’m different.

The very molecules and structures that form to make me as an individual have shifted and warped, turning me into someone I don’t recognise. How can I be the same person after everything that happened? Everything I did.

I’d hoped that returning would put the scales back to normal and help me forget or allow me to cope. But how can I? Maybe that was a task too big, not unlike the questions reviewed under my research – deemed to be put under scrutiny with only the smallest of margins of progress. Have I made any progress since being back? My heart says no. And so does my head.

When I left Caltech, it was for a personal leave of absence, agreed for a period of one term with no impact on my academic progress or completing my research. But the terms of my leave have expired, and I’m lucky the studio apartment as part of my scholarship is still available to me.

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